Nintendo has experienced varying degrees of success over the years, from dominant industry force, to scrappy underdog. Thanks to the popularity of the Switch in recent years, it looks like they’re very much back to being the former. In fact, according to game sales analyst Pierre485 on Twitter, Nintendo’s profits have been greater during the Switch’s lifespan than their total profits made between 1981 and 2016.
Check out a graph illustrating this point below:
Examining the graph, we can see that the previous most profitable era for Nintendo was around 2007 to 2010, which was of course when the Wii was in full swing. Then, there’s a big dip immediately after, stemming from the less than stellar sales of the Wii U. However, since the release of the Switch in 2017, those numbers have been steadily climbing, with a particularly huge spike in 2021.
Considering how successful Nintendo has been over the years, it’s pretty amazing that they’ve managed to achieve a greater level of success than in all those years combined in such a short time. In fact, this still holds true even when accounting for inflation. There’s no doubt that the Switch is a phenomenon, though other factors surely include Nintendo’s foray into mobile games, theme parks, and blockbuster films.
Will Nintendo be able to maintain this level of profit when moving on to their next console? Time will tell!
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mystikoi
12d agoI remember in the Wii U days when a number of so-called experts were saying Nintendo was toast and the only way they could survive is by exiting the hardware business and going third party. It's so cathartic to see them proven wrong in the biggest possible way.
smasher89
12d agoNot suprised, controllers that break would mean way more controllersales (that said my pro seems to work good still even if its not a dpad controller, joy cons i gave up after the second pair), online behind paywall for quite low effort, raised game prices, less content (just look at the sports games) but also some great stuff like Xenoblade 2 and 3.
Bet the pressure is kinda high to deliver when it comes to the next system, kinda miss humble nintendo from the wii u days though even if stocks have been rising !
conangiga
10d agoNow take that money and actually do something with it. I miss the GC/GBA and Wii/DS times where for every "big" game on the console and handheld you would also get a small and sometimes weird game for the handheld.
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